Space is the final frontier. It’s also where no one can hear you scream.

These are the two axes upon which the whole science-fiction genre spins because either the universe is knowable — at some level — and accessible to brave souls who venture into the vastness, or it’s not, in which case human existence is like being an untethered astronaut drifting in the void.

One is overcome by either the explorer’s courage or existential terror.

Director Alfonso Cuarón finds a lean and elegant mix of both emotional reactions to outer space in his taut 90-minute thriller set in Earth’s orbit because he casts Sandra Bullock as a human character experiencing both reactions at once.

The veteran talent takes on the role of Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer who just happens to be on her first shuttle mission when a debris storm tears through the vehicle and leaves her and fellow astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) up in space without a pod, pad or paddle.

Fortunately, there is a jet pack. But that’s not much help on re-entry, leaving our two characters to share the emptiness of space together — at least long enough to get some basic character information out of the way.

Stone is expectedly stony, while Kowalski is the chatty old pro taking one last look at the curve of the Earth before he hangs up the Velcro gloves.

The two generate as much screen chemistry as can be expected when wearing a space helmet, but this isn’t a star-crossed romance.

At its core, this is a straightforward survival story, but Cuarón has clearly seen Deliverance in addition to Alien and the Poseidon Adventure and 2001: A Space Odyssey. He made a movie that is set in space but has its roots on Earth where these people truly belong, and where, for the time being, they can live without a space suit.

Cuarón uses every tool at his disposal to make us believe his cast is in a zero-G setting, and the actors pull off the demanding physical work necessary to look weightless, so we’re fully convinced of the environment.

That’s important because we’re not immediately questioning the performances off the bat. We can fall into the moment, and feel like we’re right there with Ryan Stone as she feels the tug of gravity pulling her back to Earth, and also maybe death.

Frontier stories always have casualties.

But Cuarón frames Gravity more like an Ingmar Bergman movie than any western, and turns a typically fantasy-fuelled genre into an austere, largely black and white auteur film.

There is gravitas in Gravity. The beats are real, and always striving for realism in the midst of absolute spectacle, and that’s a testament to Bullock — who pretty much carries the whole movie.

Picking up the undershirt where Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley dropped hers off on the escape pod of Nostromo, Bullock makes the most of the extra vulnerability value derived from being pantless — in outer space.

She also nails the smarts, to the point of near-nerdiness, by making her character’s need to be an achiever palpable — just by the way she pushes buttons.

All Clooney really has to do is be there and smile, but as always, he does a lot more. The actor brings his own gravitational pull to any project, and here, his presence plays out the courageous cowboy side of the frontier gestalt.

Bullock has the harder job of playing out the existential terror of the situation. She does a great job with the physicality and delivery, but the script isn’t doing her any favours with the somewhat sentimental dialogue.

She pulls it off all the same, but it’s too bad Cuarón went for heavy notes when he could have been weightless and just as effective.

To his credit, he also proves there’s a very good reason to use 3D technology in a motion picture.

When your backdrop is the Earth itself, photographed from her most benevolent angle high above the atmosphere, there is no such thing as too much depth or too much screen. And when every single object in the film is floating, there’s no better time to put stereoscopic goggles to good use.

But Cuarón’s real victory in the film and his use of 3D is the way he lets it acquire an important role in the storytelling, because it allows the viewer to really get a sense of the unfathomable emptiness and isolation just above the clouds where home looks so close, but is worlds away.

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